Written by Richard Rider, Chairman of San Diego Tax Fighters
Californians don’t realize that since 2012, our state’s net highest state income tax rate has more than doubled. Way more, in fact.
First, in 2012 the top three state income tax rates went from 10.9% to as high as 13.3%. Retroactively, I might add. This “gouge the wealthy” tax was passed by California voters in November 2012 and was retroactive to the first of the year. I don’t know why that was legal, but it withstood a court challenge.
Then with the state and local tax (SALT) 2017 tax reform clause, top earners cannot write off their state income taxes on their federal returns. This is a big deal for the wealthy.
The combination of this double-barreled tax blast raised the net marginal income tax rate for top California earners from about 5.6% to 13.3%. That’s a 138% increase in the California net income tax.
If liberals don’t get SALT repealed after the next election (a difficult position for the “soak the rich” Democrats to run for office on), I expect that there will be another surge of rich people and their companies fleeing the Golden State.
